Speaker 1: A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide.
Speaker 1: Please listen with caution and care. In January of two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, Janetta car was over at her best
Speaker 1: friend's house when there was a knock at the door.
Speaker 1: Police were investigating a violent murder that occurred in the
Speaker 1: area a few months earlier. Sixteen year old Janetta was handcuffed,
Speaker 1: taken down to the precinct, and questioned for nearly twelve hours.
Speaker 2: When I asked for my mom, he told me that
Speaker 2: it was not a girl Scouts meeting, that my mom
Speaker 2: was not a way to come down there.
Speaker 1: It was a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. Janetta
Speaker 1: soon found herself locked up in juvenile detention, charged with
Speaker 1: the murder of the man who had been her boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Janetta had a solid alibi, but as the investigation closed
Speaker 1: in around her, she felt more and more hopeless, until
Speaker 1: finally she saw only one way out.
Speaker 2: I took all these pills one night that I had
Speaker 2: been saving that I wasn't taken, and like two o'clock
Speaker 2: in the morning, I get a tap on my arm
Speaker 2: and it's this lady stand in front of me. She
Speaker 2: got an all white nurse's outfit. She just kept touching me,
Speaker 2: saying everything's gonna be okay, It's okay, sweenye. And I
Speaker 2: thought she was an angel. I feel like she honestly
Speaker 2: saved my life. My name is Johanetta Carr and I'm
Speaker 2: thirty four years old. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 1: From LoVa for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Janetta Carr. Janetta Carr was born on me
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight, in Louisville, Kentucky. She's the
Speaker 1: youngest of six kids and often spent time with her
Speaker 1: extended family.
Speaker 2: You know, the youngest child, I always were in things
Speaker 2: so like I'm kind of it was cool, you know,
Speaker 2: I was. I'm very, very spoiled by my siblings. I
Speaker 2: really didn't get in trouble as much by my great grandmother,
Speaker 2: my mom's mom's mom. When stuff would happen, we would
Speaker 2: all be at her house and my great grandmother was like,
Speaker 2: she's a baby. She didn't do that.
Speaker 3: You know, you had the baby privilege.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the baby privilege. Definitely the baby privilege.
Speaker 1: Until Janetta's stepdad, Edward came into the picture. Janetta's mom, Lorinda,
Speaker 1: raised all six kids on her own.
Speaker 2: She worked hard her whole life to take care of us.
Speaker 2: But you know, we had a lot of family support.
Speaker 2: So like my family's always been close.
Speaker 4: We would have.
Speaker 2: Dinners, you know, at my grandmother's house, who's my mom's mom,
Speaker 2: very very close to my biolage dad's mom, and my
Speaker 2: aunties and uncles on that side of the family, seven
Speaker 2: of us total, you know. So I was always with
Speaker 2: my brothers and sisters, my cousins. You know. When I
Speaker 2: became a teenager, I would hang with my friends in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood. We'd be at my mom's house. We wasn't
Speaker 2: at my mom's house, we'd be at one of my
Speaker 2: other two friends house. We'd be in the porch, you know.
Speaker 1: Lorenda kept a religious household, and Janetta and her siblings
Speaker 1: went to church every Sunday. Janetta also kept busy performing
Speaker 1: in plays at her church and taking acting classes at
Speaker 1: the local theater camp.
Speaker 2: And we actually did the The Midsummer's Night Dream was
Speaker 2: one of the plays that we did, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to be the witch, but I didn't get the witch part.
Speaker 2: I ended up being the unicorn. And I actually love
Speaker 2: unicorns today, so I got to be a unicorn and
Speaker 2: a point.
Speaker 4: She was just a typical teenager.
Speaker 1: You know, this is Janetta's mom, Loreinda Baker, doing.
Speaker 4: What typical teenage just do.
Speaker 5: Own the phone with her friends, withjama parties, movies, skating,
Speaker 5: hanging out into some on the front, forge ice cream,
Speaker 5: you know that type of thing.
Speaker 1: Was she ever in any kind of trouble.
Speaker 4: No. Joannette is a lovely person.
Speaker 5: She's got a lovely personality on a wonderful spirit.
Speaker 1: And everyone around her felt that spirit. She loved to
Speaker 1: spend time with her friends and pamper them.
Speaker 2: Like when we would go, you know, do stuff to
Speaker 2: the mom me and my friends. I would always be
Speaker 2: the last one to get ready because I was doing
Speaker 2: everybody else's her make up.
Speaker 4: This stuff they used to rush me.
Speaker 1: Janetta was super smart and a driven young woman. She
Speaker 1: graduated high school early at just sixteen years old. Right
Speaker 1: after graduation, Janetta started school at Sullivan University, studying to
Speaker 1: be a paralegal. She had planned to work for the
Speaker 1: Prosecutor's office. Around this time, she met Michael.
Speaker 2: I met him just in the neighborhood, like my best friend.
Speaker 2: Her and her mom had lived in these apartments, and
Speaker 2: he lived in the apartments next to where they lived
Speaker 2: at Planis.
Speaker 1: Michael Adolphe, who went by Michael, was from Haiti. He
Speaker 1: worked as a cab driver.
Speaker 4: He was nice.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was cool. You know.
Speaker 1: Michael and Janetta started dating even though he was twenty
Speaker 1: years older than she was.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had already graduated high school. I really
Speaker 2: went into dudes my age, and I know, I don't
Speaker 2: care about y'all judging me America, because let me tell
Speaker 2: y'all something, right now, Okay, let's get this straight. Okay, yes,
Speaker 2: that is part of my story. I don't care what
Speaker 2: y'all think, how y'all feel about it, because every single
Speaker 2: teenager has something that they do to rebel against their parents. Okay,
Speaker 2: some teenagers still stuff, maybe some still cars do whatever. Okay,
Speaker 2: I just liked oda dudes.
Speaker 1: Despite their age difference, Janetta and Michael had a great relationship.
Speaker 1: They had fun together, and Janetta says that he was
Speaker 1: a kind and generous man.
Speaker 2: We was two individuals that connected and liked each other.
Speaker 1: On the night of October twenty second, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: about two months into their relationship, Michael had friends over
Speaker 1: at his apartment to play dominoes. Janetta was spending the
Speaker 1: night at a friend's house for a sleepover party. What
Speaker 1: do you remember about that night?
Speaker 2: I just remember me and my friends. We was doing
Speaker 2: her We was doing you know, makeup. We was watching videos,
Speaker 2: you know, slapping, eating snacks. At just a normal night, yep.
Speaker 1: But the next morning would be anything but normal. Around
Speaker 1: nine am, a neighbor called the police to report that
Speaker 1: someone was collapsed in front of their apartment building.
Speaker 2: It was Michael.
Speaker 1: He had been strangled, apparently with an electrical cord from
Speaker 1: a fan that was wrapped around his neck. His feet
Speaker 1: were bound with duct tape. Michael's wallet and cell phone
Speaker 1: were missing, and in his pocket was a Growl restore
Speaker 1: receipt timestamped ten forty seven pm the night before. His
Speaker 1: cab was later found a few miles away, ransacked and abandoned,
Speaker 1: with the stereo missing. Sometime after Michael left the grocery
Speaker 1: store that night, he had been robbed and violently murdered.
Speaker 1: When did you find out that Michael was killed?
Speaker 2: I've seen it on the news. It was crazy and
Speaker 2: scary and horrible and like unbelievable about who could have
Speaker 2: done it because he didn't have, you know, no like
Speaker 2: enemies that I knew of, because he was such a
Speaker 2: sweet person. So I was like, why would somebody do this?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Who would do this?
Speaker 1: Janetta was heartbroken and things were about to get worse.
Speaker 1: Two and a half months later, Janetta was at her
Speaker 1: friend's house when investigators came looking for her.
Speaker 2: They showed up in my best friend's house, who I
Speaker 2: was sleep next to the night that the crime happened.
Speaker 2: They showed up at her house and a detective Tony
Speaker 2: Finch knocked on the door. Her mom was like, Janetta,
Speaker 2: detective for a play you.
Speaker 1: Detective Tony Finch was the lead investigator on the case,
Speaker 1: and when Janetta came to the door, he took out
Speaker 1: his handcuffs and arrested her for the murder of plunt
Speaker 1: As Michael Adolphe. Then he brought her down to the precinct.
Speaker 2: I was really confused. I didn't know why I was there,
Speaker 2: what was going on. I just thought that I was
Speaker 2: going to get to go home because I didn't do nothing,
Speaker 2: So I was scared. I was everything any emotion you
Speaker 2: can think of. I was angry, you know, was it
Speaker 2: like registering?
Speaker 1: Like were you processing like, oh, they think I did this. No,
Speaker 1: even though Kentucky laws his police must notify my nurse
Speaker 1: parents before questioning them. Janetta was interrogated alone by Sergeant
Speaker 1: James Hellinger and lead Detective Tony Finch. She says Detective
Speaker 1: Finch was extremely harsh with her.
Speaker 2: When I asked for my mom, he told me that
Speaker 2: it was not a girl Scouts meeting, that my mom
Speaker 2: was not allowed to come down there.
Speaker 1: Janetta says he threatened her, calling her a murderer, a bitch,
Speaker 1: and a whore.
Speaker 2: He asked me if I was in a gang. He
Speaker 2: tell me he had people that placed me at the
Speaker 2: scene and that he knew that I was guilty. He
Speaker 2: told me that I was a danger and threat to
Speaker 2: society and that he didn't want me on his f
Speaker 2: and streets and that I was going to prison for
Speaker 2: f and live.
Speaker 1: The interrogation went on for over eleven hours. Janetta maintained
Speaker 1: her innocence the entire time. She was sure she would
Speaker 1: soon be released to go home, but that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where they work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Speaker 2: I went straight from the interrogation room. They took me
Speaker 2: in his highway. They started taking pictures of me and
Speaker 2: had me held up its number, and then they yet
Speaker 2: they sent me shirt to j c Wise. The same
Speaker 2: night I got boked into j CYS.
Speaker 1: J c Yse is the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center.
Speaker 1: Janetta's mother, Larinda, had no idea what had happened. How
Speaker 1: did you find out?
Speaker 5: My neighbor, Miss Pete, let me use her phone for
Speaker 5: any type of situation that I may have, and she
Speaker 5: came and knocked on my door and told me that
Speaker 5: Jace Wyse wanted me on the phone. I had ma Pajamazone.
Speaker 5: It was about seven forty five, eight o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 5: I ran out the back door. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 5: I left the back door open when I went to
Speaker 5: her house and got on the phone. The lady from
Speaker 5: j C Wysse told me that they were holding Johanetta
Speaker 5: on some conspiracy to murder and manslaughter and that she
Speaker 5: had to be in court that morning at eight thirty.
Speaker 5: I just couldn't believe it, you know, because the Johanetta
Speaker 5: that I know is not capable of that type of thing.
Speaker 5: And I knew that she didn't do it. I knew
Speaker 5: she was innocent.
Speaker 1: Janetta had a rock solid alibi. Over half a dozen
Speaker 1: people had been at that sleepover, but detectives had their
Speaker 1: sights set on her.
Speaker 4: For the first time.
Speaker 5: I couldn't tell her this is it's gonna be okay,
Speaker 5: It's going to be all right. You know, You're gonna
Speaker 5: be fine. We're going to get through this, because I
Speaker 5: didn't know if we were going to get through this.
Speaker 5: I didn't know what was going to happen, you know.
Speaker 5: And I could see her she was trying to be strong,
Speaker 5: because I guess she was trying to be strong for me,
Speaker 5: and I was trying to be strong for her. And
Speaker 5: I didn't want her to see me cry because I
Speaker 5: knew if she had saw me cry, she would have
Speaker 5: been more upset than she already was, and I didn't
Speaker 5: want to inflict any more pain on her.
Speaker 1: What Janetta didn't know was that while she was left
Speaker 1: confused and alone in juvenile jail, detectives were building an
Speaker 1: entire case against her. A few weeks before Janetta was arrested,
Speaker 1: detectives had interrogated a friend who was also at the sleepover.
Speaker 1: To protect the identities of these individuals, we'll call this friend, Carrie,
Speaker 1: Detective Finch had arrested nineteen year old Carrie on a
Speaker 1: bench warrant for shoplifting. While in custody, he interrogated her
Speaker 1: about Michael Adolphe's murder. Carrie said there was no way
Speaker 1: Janetta was involved. They were together all night. Carrie said
Speaker 1: that she and a few other friends, including one we'll
Speaker 1: call Kyle, drove around that night. They stopped at White
Speaker 1: Castle for some food before going back to Kyle's house
Speaker 1: for a sleepover with a bigger group of people. Janetta
Speaker 1: never left the house by herself that night, but Finch
Speaker 1: ran with that and started implicating both Carrie and Kyle
Speaker 1: in the murder as well. Finch told Carrie he'd help
Speaker 1: her with her shoplifting charges if she would repeat the
Speaker 1: story he wanted to hear. After about ten hours of interrogation,
Speaker 1: Carrie broke down and repeated Finch's false narrative that she, Kyle,
Speaker 1: and Janetta killed Michael quickly, though Carrie recanted and again
Speaker 1: maintained that she knew nothing about the murder, but it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Finch arrested her anyway. Kyle was also interrogated
Speaker 1: by detectives about the murder, and he too was eventually arrested.
Speaker 1: Carrie and Kyle were nineteen years old, technically adults, but
Speaker 1: Janetta was only sixteen. She was initially charged as a juvenile,
Speaker 1: but she was later indicted as an adult. Among Janetta's
Speaker 1: charges first degree murder. The weight of everything that was
Speaker 1: happening was too much for Janetta to process, and while
Speaker 1: she was in the juvenile detention center.
Speaker 2: I'll try to kill myself.
Speaker 1: After her suicide attempt, Janetta was transferred to Our Lady
Speaker 1: of Peace Hospital. She was diagnosed with clinical depression and
Speaker 1: put on medication.
Speaker 2: So they started give me these pills I was supposed
Speaker 2: to take, and I would have the pels in my
Speaker 2: cheek because I still wanted to to kill myself because
Speaker 2: I was that hopeless from being incarcerated for a crime
Speaker 2: I didn't commit, having nothing to do with. So I
Speaker 2: took all these pills one night that I had been
Speaker 2: saving that I wasn't taken, and like two o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, I get a tap on my arm and
Speaker 2: it's this lady stand in front of me. She got
Speaker 2: on an all white nurses outfit. She had like caramel
Speaker 2: skin short her. She just kept touching me, saying, everything's
Speaker 2: gonna be okay, It's okay, sweetie. The next day I
Speaker 2: started asking the staff members, you know who she was, like,
Speaker 2: because I wanted to thank her, you know, because I
Speaker 2: feel like she honestly saved my life. And they was like,
Speaker 2: we don't know her. Nobody works here. The person you're
Speaker 2: describing doesn't work, And I thought she was an angel.
Speaker 1: Soon after that experience, Janetta reached out to her mom
Speaker 1: and told her about taking the pills.
Speaker 5: And to the hospital and set with her and just
Speaker 5: held her hand, you know, and told her, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I'm
Speaker 5: so sorry that you're going through this, you know. I mean,
Speaker 5: you sitting in his jael Syal day after day, minute
Speaker 5: at the minute, you know, and you see people going
Speaker 5: home and you're still sitting here for something that you
Speaker 5: didn't do. I probably would have took my life to
Speaker 5: you know, but I know that God has a purpose
Speaker 5: for everybody's life, and I just felt like God had
Speaker 5: a lot for her to do down here, and he
Speaker 5: wasn't ready for her to go yet.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, instead of probing other angles, like analyzing the evidence
Speaker 1: at the murder scene or pursuing other potential suspects, Detective
Speaker 1: Finch was hell bent on closing the case.
Speaker 3: He would do whatever he needed to do to get
Speaker 3: a conviction.
Speaker 1: This is Suzanne Hopp, directing attorney of the Kentucky in
Speaker 1: a Since project. They represented Janetta in her post conviction efforts.
Speaker 3: The final sort of nail in the coffin there is
Speaker 3: that there was a jailhouse informant that was used against Janetta.
Speaker 1: After Janetta turned eighteen, she was transferred from juvenile detention
Speaker 1: to an adult jail, and an informant who lived in
Speaker 1: the cell next door, Laurie Deckard, said that Janetta confessed
Speaker 1: to her. According to Laurie, Janetta told her she was
Speaker 1: mad at Michael, and so she, Carrie and Kyle went
Speaker 1: to his apartment and robbed and murdered him. Detectives got
Speaker 1: statements from other jailhouse informants implicating Kyle and Carrie as well,
Speaker 1: but they still had a problem the other people at
Speaker 1: the sleepover, Janetta had a solid alibi, So detective Jim
Speaker 1: Lawson interrogated Janetta's best friend, whom we'll call Britney. Brittany
Speaker 1: said she was with Janetta all night. They slept on
Speaker 1: the couch together and fell asleep under the same blanket.
Speaker 2: She told him that Johnetta did not do this, she
Speaker 2: was snaxting me.
Speaker 1: Sleep that night, but laws In dismissed her account. Instead,
Speaker 1: he fabricated a report saying Brittany told him she was
Speaker 1: a heavy sleeper and couldn't say whether or not Janetta
Speaker 1: had left the house. Even with all their alleged evidence
Speaker 1: against Janetta, Carrie, and Kyle, detectives were still hell bent
Speaker 1: on getting one of the three to flip on the others.
Speaker 3: They were relentless. They just kept going after all three
Speaker 3: co defendants and repeatedly questioning them. What the police were
Speaker 3: doing was they were telling all three co defendants that
Speaker 3: if all of you don't admit to this crime and
Speaker 3: enter into guilty please, and we're going to try one
Speaker 3: of the adults under the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Remember Kyle and Carrie were both nineteen.
Speaker 3: That was sort of like the ultimate, the end point
Speaker 3: where these three individuals were thinking about their friends and
Speaker 3: somebody facing the death penalty.
Speaker 1: With this life or death situation looming over the trio,
Speaker 1: the state offered them a plea bargain called an Alfred plea,
Speaker 1: and Alfred plea is a deal with the state or
Speaker 1: defendants plead guilty for a lesser sentence, but are allowed
Speaker 1: to maintain their innocence. Prosecutors told them they would only
Speaker 1: accept the plea deal if all three pled guilty, so
Speaker 1: they did. On April fourteenth, two thousand and eight. Janetta
Speaker 1: took the deal and pled guilty to evidence tampering, two
Speaker 1: conspiracy charges, and second degree manslaughter. She was sentenced to
Speaker 1: twenty years in prison. So how did it feel to
Speaker 1: take a plea saying, you know, I'm innocent, but I
Speaker 1: recognize all of this evidence because you know it's not
Speaker 1: real evidence.
Speaker 3: What did that feel like?
Speaker 2: I literally felt like I had no other choice because
Speaker 2: at that point I was just helpless. Just know that
Speaker 2: I was not the Johnetta then that I am now,
Speaker 2: you know, I went educated about the law and thinking
Speaker 2: they could arrest people for crimes they didn't committed.
Speaker 1: While in prison, Janetta tried to stay as productive as possible.
Speaker 2: I took computer classes, and I went to church a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, swung in the choir, a lot, wrote letters,
Speaker 2: a lot ate a lot too many noodles. I do
Speaker 2: not eat noodles. No more, y'all cany, No, we're not.
Speaker 3: Than.
Speaker 1: What was that like to be around adults as a
Speaker 1: as a kid.
Speaker 2: Well, at first, it was kind of scary because I
Speaker 2: was thinking, oh, my guinness, these people are criminals, Like
Speaker 2: what am I gonna do? But actually I met a
Speaker 2: bunch of beautiful women from all different walks of life,
Speaker 2: and they was really lights to me. You know. We
Speaker 2: gave each other hope because there was nothing else we
Speaker 2: could do. I think I went through every emotion that
Speaker 2: a parent could go through. I got frustrated, I got angry,
Speaker 2: I got upset, I cried because you know, there were.
Speaker 4: No resources available, and it.
Speaker 5: Was just a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to go through
Speaker 5: for anybody. I think one of the hardest parts for
Speaker 5: me was having to explain to Johanetta's nieces and nephews
Speaker 5: that we didn't know when she was going to come
Speaker 5: home because Johnette is very close to them and they
Speaker 5: love her, you know. And then they're crying and I'm crying,
Speaker 5: and we're all trying to make some sense out of this,
Speaker 5: and we still can't make any sense out of it
Speaker 5: as it stands today.
Speaker 1: About a year or so after her conviction, and Janetta
Speaker 1: was called into the prison office.
Speaker 2: Surprised me because I didn't know why I was getting
Speaker 2: called in her because I didn't get in any trouble
Speaker 2: while I was, you know, incarcerated, so I didn't know
Speaker 2: why I was getting called in there.
Speaker 1: When she walked in, Laurie Deckard, the jail house snitch,
Speaker 1: was there, and she admitted that during the investigation the
Speaker 1: police told her to lie about Janetta and say she confessed.
Speaker 2: Because I'm like, okay, you're saying this now, why didn't
Speaker 2: you say that, you know a long time ago? Like
Speaker 2: I'm basically, you're a part of this. You're a part
Speaker 2: of the fabricated evidence and part of the reason why
Speaker 2: I'm here. It is her fault because she didn't have
Speaker 2: to lie. But when you really think about the jail
Speaker 2: house snitches. The system actually puts them in situations, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So really the detectives on my
Speaker 2: case is responsible for that.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, after serving four years of
Speaker 1: a twenty year sentence, Janetta was eligible for parole. She
Speaker 1: was granted time served for the time she spent in
Speaker 1: the juvenile detention facility and was released from prison.
Speaker 5: It was a joy and of blessing to see her
Speaker 5: after not being able to see her for so many years,
Speaker 5: and being able to see her was you know, I
Speaker 5: was in at mowhere. I didn't want to let it go.
Speaker 5: She used to tell me all the time, when my
Speaker 5: mama go, miss Peties. I'd be like, no, I want
Speaker 5: you to stay in the house.
Speaker 4: I don't want you to go nowhere.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I kind of wented to a
Speaker 5: mother overload, but I think I kind of had a
Speaker 5: rite to at everything that she had been through. I
Speaker 5: just wanted to keep her as close to me as
Speaker 5: I possibly could.
Speaker 1: Although she was home, Janetta's journey wasn't over. She was
Speaker 1: physically free, but people on parole are still under scrutinous
Speaker 1: state control. Janetta had to do random check ins and
Speaker 1: drug tests and even had to pay a monthly twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars fee. She also had to maintain a job,
Speaker 1: which wasn't eat because of her record of incarceration.
Speaker 2: So I would go in jobs, you know, and they
Speaker 2: would be like, you know, you seem like a great
Speaker 2: person everything, but your background, you know. And I went
Speaker 2: in like ten jobs a day sometimes, and I was
Speaker 2: living with my mom at the time, and I would
Speaker 2: just go home and I would just bother to her.
Speaker 2: Then I started doing research and found fault that it's
Speaker 2: estimated in America with ten thousand people get falsely convict
Speaker 2: her of crimes they didn't committe each year. And my
Speaker 2: heart was just like, uh, they doing this to other
Speaker 2: people too. I know how this feels. And I had
Speaker 2: not heard nobody talking about it.
Speaker 5: And you know, I asked her one day, I said,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm so angry. And I asked, I said,
Speaker 5: how come you're not mad? She said, my mom, don't
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna be angry. I'm not gonna be mad.
Speaker 5: She said, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna fight. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna fight, she said, because I didn't do this and
Speaker 5: I'm innocent.
Speaker 2: I started to go to the Plasma center and donate plasma.
Speaker 2: And it was a foun dollar right next to the
Speaker 2: plasma center, and I would take the money from plasma,
Speaker 2: go to family Dollar, get posts to border markers, and
Speaker 2: I would make signs trying to write his awareness for
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions, and I would just started walking around, you know,
Speaker 2: my city.
Speaker 1: Holding At the same time, Janetta was also trying to
Speaker 1: get off parole and still working to prove her innocence.
Speaker 2: I would look up numbers, you know, for like innocent projects,
Speaker 2: people who helped innocent I would just google it, and
Speaker 2: I would you know, call and lead messages on different
Speaker 2: people's voicemails and stuff, still trying to find help.
Speaker 1: Finally, almost a decade after her release, the Kentucky Innocence
Speaker 1: Project agreed to help Janetta fight for her exoneration.
Speaker 3: So when we inherited the case in twenty eighteen, we
Speaker 3: started doing the record review and attempting to find individuals
Speaker 3: to interview. And then shortly after getting the case, we
Speaker 3: received news that we were getting a DNA testing grant
Speaker 3: from the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: Janetta would finally get a chance to test the evidence,
Speaker 1: specifically the duct tape and the electrical cord that were
Speaker 1: found on Michael Adolphe's body to see if there was
Speaker 1: a DNA match with the actual perpetrator.
Speaker 3: If we could get a hit on something in the
Speaker 3: national database and CODIS, it would then build a stronger
Speaker 3: case for Janetta. Obviously we would have been able to
Speaker 3: locate who had actually killed the victim.
Speaker 1: And during its investigation, the Kentucky Innocence Project discovered bombshell
Speaker 1: information that had never been disclosed to Janetta or her
Speaker 1: attorneys all those years ago. First off, it turns out
Speaker 1: that DNA testing had been conducted on the case back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six. While it didn't point to
Speaker 1: someone else as the perpetrator, it did indicate that neither
Speaker 1: Janetta nor her co defendants could have committed the murder.
Speaker 1: Not only that, the Kentucky Innocence Project discovered that there
Speaker 1: were viable alternative suspects who were ever properly investigated. Who
Speaker 1: is Steve Lewis.
Speaker 3: He should have been a person of interest. I think
Speaker 3: the police should have pursued a very deep investigation into
Speaker 3: mister Lewis.
Speaker 1: Steve Lewis was an acquaintance of Michaels and in the
Speaker 1: early days of the investigation officers got a tip from
Speaker 1: a friend of Michael's who said he had seen Steve
Speaker 1: Lewis and Michael in a heated argument over a girl,
Speaker 1: and that during the fight, Steve threatened to kill Michael.
Speaker 1: When he was questioned by police, Steve denied involvement, but
Speaker 1: he was unable to provide an alibi for his whereabounds
Speaker 1: around the time of the murder. Yet, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the investigation into Steve ended. Finally, phone records showed that
Speaker 1: someone was using Michael's phone after his death. There were
Speaker 1: calls made to Los Angeles and to Florida, and again
Speaker 1: the police never followed up. Instead, they went after sixteen
Speaker 1: year old Janetta and her friends.
Speaker 3: Oh. I think the state offered her an offered plea
Speaker 3: because they knew she would go to trial and they
Speaker 3: had questions about the strength of their case. I think
Speaker 3: the case had been pending long enough that the prosecutor
Speaker 3: wanted to get some closure on it. They knew that
Speaker 3: they had some problems with their case, that if they
Speaker 3: went to trial they might not get a conviction.
Speaker 1: Do you think if you went to trial you might
Speaker 1: have won?
Speaker 2: Probably? So I can't think about it and the reason
Speaker 2: why I can't think about it because it brings back
Speaker 2: so much pain. I'm trying to be a light in
Speaker 2: the world, so I can't think about these things. I
Speaker 2: just had to move with purpose and take the pain
Speaker 2: that I've been through and make it. My purpose is
Speaker 2: to make legislation for the next generations so that people
Speaker 2: don't get wrongly convicted and so that my children don't
Speaker 2: have to go through what I went through. Johnetta doesn't
Speaker 2: want to be angry, you know what I'm saying. Johnetta
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be better. Johnetta doesn't want to be bad.
Speaker 2: And Johnetta is not going to be the Commonwealth of
Speaker 2: Kentucky's victim because they already took too many years of
Speaker 2: my life. So I don't think about these things. I can't.
Speaker 1: The Kentucky Innocence Project also applied for a pardon for Janetta,
Speaker 1: and on December ninth, twenty nineteen, Kentucky Governor Matthew Bevin
Speaker 1: pardoned her based on her actual innocence.
Speaker 2: The Governor called me and he actually apologized. He said,
Speaker 2: I want to apologize to you for what the Commonwealth
Speaker 2: did to you, and we actually cried.
Speaker 1: However, the pardon left Janetta in a strange situation. The
Speaker 1: Kentucky state statuted for DNA testing says that a person
Speaker 1: must be under state supervision to qualify for testing.
Speaker 3: So it's very unfortunate because we think that there is
Speaker 3: biological material on the evidence that was collected, the evidence
Speaker 3: still exists, we would like to test it.
Speaker 1: If that DNA isn't tested, Michael's true killer may never
Speaker 1: be known.
Speaker 3: If indeed there is a person out there that killed
Speaker 3: the victim and that they're still out there, they may
Speaker 3: still be doing the same thing to other people. The
Speaker 3: public is certainly at greater risk to not have that
Speaker 3: DNA testing get done.
Speaker 1: Janetta is also not eligible for any kind of wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction compensation because Kentucky is one of the twelve states
Speaker 1: that do not have compensation laws for xoneries.
Speaker 2: But somebody needs has to start being held accountable when
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions happen. I'm so discussed it and appalled at
Speaker 2: the justice system in Kentucky and what they are using
Speaker 2: and spending our tax dollars on. And when you think
Speaker 2: about it, you know, it's like a slap in the
Speaker 2: face that money and those resources could be used for
Speaker 2: so many other things, like we have a homelessness problem
Speaker 2: in Louil of Like, there's literally veterans at her who's
Speaker 2: happened to choose right now in between groceries and medicine.
Speaker 2: And they went to war and fought for this country.
Speaker 2: And we're spending tax money to pay for civil litigation
Speaker 2: calls and defenses to defend publice officers and detectives who
Speaker 2: normally breach a duty to wrongfully convict people by falsifying evidence,
Speaker 2: coherts and testimony and how DNA. That's a big issue.
Speaker 1: Janetta is now represented by the Exoneration Project and the
Speaker 1: national civil rights firm Lov and Lov. She's also a
Speaker 1: mother to two children, one year old Royalty and six
Speaker 1: year old Jakari, and she's again pursuing one of her
Speaker 1: early dreams. She's back in paralegal school, but this time
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to work in the prosecutor's office. She
Speaker 1: wants to help prevent and write wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: I'm on a journey. I'm healing me. Being wrongfully convicted
Speaker 2: something I will live with and it's going to impact
Speaker 2: my life for the rest of my life. However, I
Speaker 2: choose not to make that my entire life. I'm just
Speaker 2: really really focused on my purpose right now. You know
Speaker 2: what I need to do on life as far as
Speaker 2: bring and change, you know, and raising my kids, you know,
Speaker 2: just trying to heal and become a better me every
Speaker 2: day is all vall.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to help others who have been wrongfully convicted,
Speaker 1: Janetta recommends supporting the organizations I Am Resilience and the
Speaker 1: Chandler Project in Kentucky House Bill six ninety one. Janetta
Speaker 1: also has a GoFundMe to help raise travel expenses for
Speaker 1: exoneries attending the Innocence Conference. There will be links to
Speaker 1: all of this in our bio. Next time, on Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling, Hope White, do you think there
Speaker 1: was police corruption in your case?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there was a loss of police corruption.
Speaker 3: In that case.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please
Speaker 1: support your local innocence organizations and go to the links
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wurtis,
Speaker 1: as well as our senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson,
Speaker 1: and story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
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